CHARLEMAGNE'S PROCLAMATIONS ON EDUCATION. After reorganizing the palace school, Alcuin and Charlemagne turned their attention to the improvement of education among the monks and clergy throughout the realm. The first important service was the preparation and sending out of a carefully collected and edited series of sermons to the churches containing, "in two volumes, lessons suitable for the whole year and for each separate festival, and free from error." These Charlemagne ordered used in the churches (R. 63). He also says, "we have striven with watchful zeal to advance the cause of learning, which has been almost forgotten by the negligence of our ancestors; and, by our example, also we invite those whom we can to master the study of the liberal arts," meaning thereby to incite the bishops and clergy to a study of the learning of the mediaeval time. The volumes and letter were sent out in 786, four years after Alcuin's arrival at the court. Further to aid in the revival of learning, Charlemagne, in 787, imported a number of monks from Italy, who were capable of giving instruction in arithmetic, singing, and grammar, and sent them to the principal monasteries to teach. In 787 the first general proclamation on education of the Middle Ages was issued (R. 64 a), and from it we can infer much as to the state of learning among the monks and clergy of the time. In this document the king gently reproves the abbots of his realm for their illiteracy, and exhorts them to the study of letters. The signature is Charlemagne's, but the hand is Alcuin's. In it he tells the abbots, in commenting on the fact that they had sent letters to him telling him that "sacred and pious prayers" were being offered in his behalf, that he recognized in "most of these letters both correct thoughts and uncouth expressions; because what pious devotion dictated faithfully to the mind, the tongue, uneducated on account of the neglect of study, was not able to express in a letter without error." He therefore commands the abbots neither to neglect the study of letters, if they wish to have his favor, nor to fail to send copies of his letter "to all your suffragans and fellow bishops, and to all the monasteries." Two years later (789) Charlemagne supplemented this by a further general admonition (R. 64 b) to the ministers and clergy of his realm, exhorting them to live clean and just lives, and closing with: And let schools be established in which boys may learn to read. Correct carefully the Psalms, the signs in writing, the songs, the calendar, the grammar, in each monastery and bishopric, and the catholic book; because often some desire to pray to God properly, but they pray badly because of incorrect books.